


I Dreamt About You, Bro

by martialartist816



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Bonding, Dreams and Nightmares, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, a spicy dish of smut with a mild sprinkling of stress and humor, keith doesnt know what emotions are, klance, lance is a good friend when he tries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-01-31 14:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12683448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/martialartist816/pseuds/martialartist816
Summary: Keith and Lance share the same dreams. No, really. They literally have the same dream, every night, detail for detail. Unsurprisingly, though, it's great for bonding.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> set after shiro returns and before keith leaves for the blade of marmora

Keith sucked in a gasp so fast that the food he was chewing lodged itself in the back of his throat. He covered it up with a purposeful and inconspicuous cough and looked around the table to see if anyone was sending him weird glances. Thankfully, no one noticed his near-death experience. He could go back to eating food at a normal pace and holy fuck, did he hear that correctly?

He'd been half listening to Lance babble on and on as usual, smiling like he had an audience when really only Coran seemed interested in his story. This one in particular (the reason Keith started choking on space food in the first place) was about the dream he had the night before, something about penguin spy drones.

“But, Lance,” Pidge interrupted, “penguins don't fly.”

“Yeah, you'd never convince the enemy they were real penguins,” Hunk added.

“What are penguins?” Allura asked.

“That's not the point!” Lance said, waving his hands in front of himself. “You're not listening to the important part. So, in my dream, we used the drones to distract the air-breathing fish aliens while the mice snuck into-”

The dream itself wasn't concerning Keith, since Lance’s crazy stories never really do.

No, what made him gasp was how familiar the dream sounded. Lance rattled off specifics after specifics, and Keith’s head felt dizzy like it does with dejavu. The details played in his mind like a movie.

He successfully guessed the mice snuck into the control panel and chewed through the wiring of the fish aliens’ power source because _he had the exact same dream the night before_.

The similarity was too uncanny for him to brush it off as a coincidence because, really, what are the odds they _both_ dreamt about _air-breathing fish aliens_ (a species Keith was sure didn't even exist) on the exact same night?

But then again, could it just have been dejavu? There's a scientific explanation for that, where something is oddly familiar to you so your brain makes up the story of “I've seen this before” with the hope of organizing memories into neat little compartments. Maybe Keith had a _related_ dream, and his head wanted to claim Lance’s as his own after he spoke the finer details out loud.

After all, dreams were fleeting and unreliable. Humans forget a large percentage of them within minutes of waking up, so Lance couldn't have remembered so much of the story during dinner.

It was probably, most likely, definitely, without a doubt nothing.

“Keith, are you alright?”

The steady tenor of Shiro’s voice caused Keith to look over at him on the other end of the table, blinking.

He swallowed to clear his throat. “Yeah, why wouldn't I be?”

“You're gripping your spoon so hard your knuckles are white,” Shiro pointed out.

Keith glanced at his hand and dropped the spoon onto the table. Shiro was looking at him like he was already deciding on what he'd say to Keith after dinner.

“He looks pale,” Hunk said.

“He's always pale,” from Pidge.

“Relax, guys. He was probably just lost in thought.” Lance threw Keith a smile, and Keith was almost grateful for the defense.

But then Lance made his face into an exaggerated scowl and dropped his voice in what was definitely an attempt to mimic Keith.

_“I want dinner to be over so I can sit in my room and brood like the emo edgelord I am.”_

His unfair representation of Keith’s voice got a laugh out of everyone at the table. Even Shiro had to hide a few chuckles behind his hand.

In response, Keith shrugged and picked up his soon, digging into the food once again.

“At least I don't practice flirting with an imaginary Allura when I think no one else can hear me.”

A few hours after dinner, Keith found himself at Lance’s bedroom door. The short version of how he ended up there was that Keith had gone to train after dinner. Shiro found him beating his frustrations into the robot opponent and told him to stop avoid his problems, whatever they could be.

“Stop thinking so much,” Shiro had said. “Just let your head clear up and try to relax.”

Keith wanted to respond with something like “violence is how I clear my head,” but he could picture the frown Shiro would give in response.

So he sighed, switched off the lights in the training room, and wandered the dark hallways until his “clear” mind steered him to Lance’s door. Before his brain could yell at him to walk away, he slid the door open and knocked on the metal door frame.

“Lance,” he called.

“Dude!” Lance’s voice went up an octave. After opening the door all the way, Keith caught him standing up from the bed and fumbling with his blue and gold silk robe. “Warn a guy!”

“Nice pj’s. The slippers clash, though.” He stepped inside, and when the door closed behind him, he leaned against it. Lance’s room was just like the others, minimal and impersonal. Lance remedied that, it appeared, with a few wallet-sized photos of Earth and his family taped next to the bed.

Lance frowned and tapped his blue-lion-clad foot.

“What do you want to talk about?”

“What makes you think I’m here to talk?” Keith’s shoulders drew up self-consciously.

“Because you just _love_ being in my company so much.” Lance’s little pout faded into his natural grin. “What else would bring you here?”

“I don’t know. Boredom?”

Keith’s eyes wandered the room until they landed on a small gray notebook. It sat on the bed, open to a random page with Lance’s terrible handwriting scribbled from margin to margin.

“What’s that?” Nodding toward it with his head, Keith stepped forward and swiped the notebook up before Lance could have an opportunity to stop him. He got an impatient ‘hey!’ in response, but Lance didn’t try to take it back.

Keith flipped through the pages, fanning them out with his thumb. About half of the pages were written on, so Lance must’ve been working on it for a while.

“Don’t you ask before doing anything?” Lance groaned. Leaning over Keith’s shoulder to see which page he landed on, he changed his tone to a more excited one. “It’s my dream journal. Hunk gave me the idea to start it a while back. I just write down what I dream when I wake up. It’s pretty funny, actually, especially if you don’t know it’s about my dreams. Then reading it would just make me sound crazy.”

“You are crazy.” Keith elbowed Lance in the ribs to get him to stop breathing down his neck.

His eyes focused on one entry, dated just a week and a half ago.

_“Went home to abuela’s cooking. Man, I missed that stuff. Everything was warm and orange around me. Some younger primos chasing each other around the table. Abuela served an octopus dinner, but she forgot to cut it up. I grabbed the knife and went to make portions, but then the octopus came back to life. It looked right at me! It started talking, saying ‘thread the needle, thread the needle’ over and over again. Shit was creepy, man. Still, everyone was hungry, so I cut up the octopus and served it up on a few plates. Then my niece’s stuffed whale came to life and yelled at me for not cleaning my room.”_

“That’s not even the craziest one!” Lance giggled, reaching over to turn the pages to a different entry.

Keith held the journal loosely in his hands, gaze distant because _the universe was truly fucking with him now_.

“Lance, what the hell?”

“What? It’s just a dream. I bet you have wild ones even worse than mine.”

“No, I mean what the actual hell?” He snapped the book closed and looked up to Lance’s face, eyebrows drawn together. “I had the exact same dream!”

Lance, for some reason, thought that was hilarious. He laughed out loud, a hand coming up to cover his mouth.

“I gotta hand it to you, man. That’s the funniest joke you’ve ever told. Maybe even the only joke.”

“Lance, this is serious!”

“No offense, but everything is serious to you.”

“I had the same dream you were telling us about earlier, too. The air-breathing fish aliens.”

Lance’s laughs died down, and he looked more like maybe Keith wasn’t joking around. About time.

“Is that why you were being weirder than usual? I mean, that’s impossible. Maybe you were just imagining it?”

“I’m not imagining it, Lance.” Keith paced in a line in front of the bed, closing the journal on his finger and holding it at his side. “The details were too… perfect. It’s not a coincidence.” He held up the book. “I bet I have more that match the ones you wrote in here.”

“Hang on a second.” Lance raised his hands and took the journal away from Keith. “I’m all for you reading about my dreams and stuff, but if this is real, shouldn’t we be a little worried?”

“I am worried, dumbass!”

“I mean, like, what if this is a side effect of having space-cancer or something? We could die!”

“That’s a little overdramatic.” Keith placed both palms on Lance’s shoulders and pushed him to sit down on the bed. Lance looked up at him like a lost child, which, maybe he was. That was okay, though. Keith had a plan.

He took the journal back and flipped through the pages some more.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do: I’m gonna find out how many of our dreams match using this. That way maybe I can pinpoint a date where this all started happening. Then I’m going to talk to Shiro about it-”

“He’s gonna think we’re crazy!”

Keith shot Lance a glare that deterred him from interrupting again.

“He’s our leader and needs to know when shit like this happens. After that, the three of us can approach Allura and Coran. They probably know why this happened and have a way to make it stop.”

Lance’s fingers caught in the thigh of his pajama pants, and he unconsciously tugged on the blue silk fabric. Keith paused his pacing back and forth, watching the movement and shifting his eyes up to Lance’s face. His mouth angled downward in a slight frown, which was an easy indicator in Lance’s respect that he wasn’t feeling too hot.

Resisting the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose, Keith sat next to Lance on the mattress and set the journal aside.

“Nervous you’re gonna have some incriminating dreams tonight?”

Keith kept a straight face until Lance looked at him with big, bewildered eyes. He broke out into a smirk, amused by the reaction he got.

“Was that a joke this time? A real joke from Keith ‘my idea of a good time is training’ Kogane?”

“Hey, I know how to have a good time! You’ve seen my dreams.”

“Shoulda called you Keith ‘can’t take a joke’ Kogane.” Lance chuckled and reached across Keith’s lap to pick up the journal, thumbing through the pages. “Speaking of, I wonder which ones are yours, which are mine, ya know?”

“All the weird ones are definitely yours.”

“You mean all the exciting ones.”

“I’m going to bed.” After rolling his eyes, Keith headed toward the door.

“When you fall asleep, am I gonna hear you finally admit that I’m a better pilot than you?”

“In your dreams.”

“I’ll see you there.”

Keith couldn’t find the courage to turn around and look at Lance, not after that line. He placed his hand on the doorframe and talked over his shoulder.

“Keep it up with that journal. It’s really helpful. Good work, Lance.”

There was a magical moment that night when Keith was dreaming. He was Lance. Well, that part about it wasn’t the magical part. It almost annoyed him, actually. But magical because for the first time in his life, Keith was aware that he was dreaming. Probably, definitely because he was now aware of this interesting, frustrating reality about his dreams.

So he was Lance. In the dream, his movements were not his own. His voice was higher, the whiny tone that grates at Keith’s very soul sometimes. When he looked down, his hands were bigger, darker.

When he looked up, Keith saw himself.

_“We’ll never make it off this planet!” Keith, dream Keith, yelled._

_They were in the castle ship, everyone on deck, Allura concentrating will all her might to make the ship fly at her command. Outside the large windows, lasers bombarded the weakened particle barrier._

_Keith, real Keith, watched the action with a sense of dread. He knew what this felt like in real life, how desperate they were to succeed, silently wondering if they would all live to see the next battle._

_The planet itself wasn’t familiar, though it probably didn’t matter much. Dream Shiro rushed to help Coran, who was frantically typing commands on his control panel to try and salvage what was left of their defenses. The attacks from outside didn’t stop, and each hit got louder and louder. It was hard to hear his own thoughts, let alone come up with an escape into the stars._

_“The ship isn’t going to last!” Pidge yelled. She was crying. Pidge never cried in real life._

_A sense of panic that was not his own settled in Keith’s chest. He knew none of it was real, but Lance seemed unaware of his own subconscious. He felt like this was all actually happening, and Keith’s emotions vacuumed it right into his own psyche._

_“We could lose some nonessential weight,” Keith said. His voice sounded far away from himself, and his gaze shot over to where dream Keith was sitting at his station. He looked focused, save a few drops of sweat above his eyebrows._

_Keith, in Lance’s body, gasped as his heart rate sped up._

_“You’re talking about me, aren’t you?” Hunk said, distant and subdued._

_“Of course not!” dream Keith answered immediately. “I said it because I’m volunteering myself. I can get off the ship and provide a distraction so the rest of you can get away.”_

_“Keith, no-” Lance tried to say, but his voice came out quiet and it cracked at the end._

_“I’ll stay with him,” Shiro chimed in, the corners of his lips pulled into a serious frown._

_“No, Shiro. I’m not going to lose you,” dream Keith said. When he looked over at their black paladin, his gaze softened in a way that surprised the real Keith who witnessed it. Did he really look at Shiro like that?_

_Lance swallowed and averted his eyes back to his own screen. Keith, all at once, understood the tight feeling in his chest and the dry, scratching sensation in his throat. Lance was about to cry. He felt scared, dreading the second that the other paladins would look at him and wait for his self sacrifice. He was the sixth paladin, after all. The extra weight they didn’t need._

Unsure if the dream was over or not, Keith woke himself and sat up in bed. Dream Lance’s emotions lingered in his head, and he had to take a second to stare into the darkness of his bedroom and remember that none of that had ever happened. And it never would.

For the second time that evening, Keith found himself facing Lance’s bedroom door. Once was an accident, the second had to be something more than a coincidence.

Without knocking, Keith tapped the wall panel and signaled the door to open. The room was dark inside, but he could make out the lump of sheets on the bed. Was Lance still asleep? Still suffering through that awful dream?

“I’m awake.”

Well, that answers that question.

Keith went to stand in front of the bed, arms folded as he glared down at where Lance’s head was hidden under the covers. Away from the safety of his own sheets, Keith found himself a bit cold dressed in only his pajamas. This damn alien spaceship and its lack of hominess. It wouldn’t hurt to keep some succulents around. Maybe a wool rug or two…

“I don’t wanna talk about it.” Lance’s muffled voice rumbled sleepily without prompt.

“Well, we’re going to talk about it because I got out of my comfy bed to be here. I could have waited until morning, you know.”

The pile of sheets shifted, and Lance’s top half appeared, bedhead and all.

“You’re being nice. I’m not used to it.”

“Want me to leave?” Keith challenged.

“Kinda.” Damn. He didn’t think that through.

“Too bad. Scoot over.”

They shuffled until Keith could sit comfortably on the edge of the bed, one leg resting bent on the mattress so he could face Lance.

“You better not have forgotten what I said about you piloting the Blue Lion,” Keith said. The more his eyes adjusted to the dark, the clearer Lance’s tired and uncharacteristically dismal expression became to him.

“We’re a team,” he continued, looking for the right thing to say to get this conversation over in as few words as possible. “Just because we have an extra paladin doesn’t mean that we could stand to lose one. Not you, Lance.”

“Relax, man.” Lance leaned up on his elbows. As his sleepiness faded, his normal smirk replaced it. “I know it was just a dream. Nothing like that would, like, ever happen.”

“Never.” Keith nodded, making sure Lance saw just how serious he was about it.

“Is that all you’re here to do? Give me a half-assed pep talk?”

Keith’s mouth twitched. _Hey, I’m trying my best, okay?_

His shoulders slumped. “Words aren’t my strongest suit.”

“You know how you told me to leave the math to Pidge?” Lance sat up all the way, the sheet falling in wrinkles on his lap. It brought their faces closer together. Keith could feel Lance’s body heat.

“Yeah?”

“Well, I’m telling you to leave the motivational speeches to Allura.”

Keith glanced up and saw what was maybe the fondest smile anyone had ever given to him. He locked eyes with Lance and felt an unfamiliar tugging from within his chest.

Lance blinked, and his expression fell. With a frown, he turned his head down and pulled the sheet up to his chest.

“We should really find a way to stop this whole dream sharing thing,” Lance muttered.

Now it was Keith’s turn to blink. “You were against telling anyone about it just a few hours ago.”

“It’s embarrassing,” Lance admitted like it was nothing. “I wasn’t ready for how… _exposed_ I would feel from you seeing all of that. Now that I know this is how every dream is gonna be, I don’t want it to go on for much longer.”

“If you’re worried about me judging you-”

“I’m an open book, yeah? But that felt like someone was tearing my pages out and watching them under a microscope.”

Keith stared at Lance, and Lance stared at the pictures next to his bed.

All Keith could manage, with a cracking whisper, was “I’m sorry.”

And suddenly, Lance was back. He dropped his head and laughed softly before returning his gaze, that fond smile back on his lips, maybe a little more tired than before.

“Don’t be sorry. I know you don’t mean it. And it’s not like this is your fault.”

Keith felt lighter, and he smiled as a result, hiding it by turning his face down toward his lap. This boy, for all his annoying qualities, sometimes knew just the right thing to say at just the right time.

But of course, good things don’t last forever, and Lance opened his mouth again.

“That being said, I’d better be the one getting to spy on _your_ deepest darkest fears next time.”

Which didn’t happen for a few quintants after that, thank the stars.

By then, Keith and Lance had talked to their castlemates about their whole predicament. Aside from a few snarky comments on Pidge’s end, they were all pretty understanding and came up with a plan to get them back to normal. No one thought they were weird, which was a relief.

Coran informed them there was a certain planet that had the right ingredients for an experimental antidote. No one had any clue why it all started in the first place, so there was no certainty that Coran’s idea would work. But he was confident in his calculations, so Keith decided to not worry about it for the time being.

He’d have to be patient, though. Getting to the planet in their sights would take a movement and a half.

When Keith settled down for bed, things were fine. The dreams lately had been less stressful than the one from before. Some of them were actually kind of entertaining. Lance had an active imagination.

They got to know a lot about each other because of their not-so-unfortunate-after-all connection. Keith got to see glimpses of Lance’s family, the sheer size of it, how they were always there for each other. It filled an emptiness inside Keith that he figured was where familial love was meant to be. He never felt it before in his life.

He also learned that Lance had an eye for beautiful things. Some of his dreams were glowing, dazzling fragments of warm light. A mountainscape here. A young girl’s laugh there. Delicious home cooked food. Keith missed Earth, but he learned that if he had what Lance had back home, he’d miss it even more.

Lance learned quite a bit about him in return. It was awkward, to say the least, when Keith had to look him in the eye the next morning after dreaming about a planet completely inhabited by cute baby hippos.

 _That_ would be something Lance would never let him live down.

So, going to bed that night, Keith was almost jittery with the anticipation of what he would see. What would Lance uncover about him? What wonders would Lance show him?

_Quiet. He had to be quiet. This was a mission of stealth, and getting caught would compromise the whole team._

_Keith’s soft breaths echoed on his helmet. The digital screen inside his visor showed that their target was just on the other side of that wall. The Galra soldier seemed to have her back to the door. All Keith had to do was slide through the door and take her out._

_One more breath, and he snuck forward. The key card Pidge had programmed to unlock all doors worked flawlessly. There was a click, and the steel plate slid open to reveal the inside of the control room. Because the soldier could have heard, Keith lunged with his bayard and prepared to make a clean cut right along the back of her neck, where Shiro said he’d find a weakness in the armor._

_It was going to be so smooth, but then she turned around._

_The soldier sensed the attack and ducked at the last second. She knocked Keith’s legs out from under him, and it felt real when his back collided with the floor and the air got knocked out of his lungs. The soldier was much bigger compared to his average human stature. She sat on his chest and sent the bayard clattering across the floor. Distressed calls from Shiro’s and Lance’s voices sounded in his ear piece._

_Focus in her gaze, the Galra raised her fist with the intent to break his helmet, smash his skull in, do anything to kill him. Keith managed to wiggle enough to reach for his blade. He swung it at her which she dodged with a growl._

_Her eyes flickered to the black and purple weapon in his hand, and she sucked in a gasp._

_“Keith?”_

_Keith considered himself pretty good at concentrating, especially in battle. But the way she said his name, and the mere fact that she even knew what it was, made him falter. Had it been any other Galra soldier, they would’ve taken his hesitation as a chance to strike. But she just sat there, staring at him with a completely different look on her face. Hope… and sadness._

_“Keith…” she said again, and he couldn’t say anything in response other than half-coherent noises. “You look just like him.”_

_Keith was powerless when she reached down with both hands to pull his helmet off. She wasn’t even holding him down anymore. He could easily get back on his feet if he knew just what the fuck was going on._

_She set the helmet on the floor and went to touch his cheek with her long purple nails. She stopped when Keith flinched._

_“You’re not…” he finally summoned. His stomach dropped when she nodded._

_“I am. I’m your mother, Keith.”_

_“You left me,” he said._

_“I did.”_

_Panic settled in. Rage, confusion, longing, hurt. His heart thudded ten times faster than the normal rate._

_“Keith.” Lance’s voice, the real Lance, not the one in his dream, sent a shiver down his spine. Lance. The Lance who was watching everything as it unfolded in Keith’s subconscious. “It’s just a dream. I bet that’s not even what she looks like.”_

_Keith wanted to listen to him. He remembered what it was like to watch Lance’s dreams, feeling what he felt and experiencing a whole new set of desires and fears. Lance was in his right mind, and Keith was the one being emotional. He should listen._

_“You never came back,” Keith said, weak._

_“I did.” His mother lowered her hand again, this time succeeding in stroking her fingers down his cheek. “I came to see your father. You were away in the army.”_

_“What did you do with him?” Keith did not like the way she looked at him._

_“What my emperor commanded me to do. It’s not fitting for a soldier to be so… attached to the enemy.”_

_“What did you do!?”_

_Keith tensed, gripping the handle of his knife and swinging again. His mother swiped at his arm and deflected the blow. Her eyes went dark again, darker than before. She looked murderous, completely apathetic._

_They got to their feet. Every jab he made at her, she avoided. In the small control room, they fought until both of them panted heavily._

_“It’s perfect that you’re here,” she started, an unsettling smirk on her lips. “I can finish what I started back on Earth so many years ago.”_

_With another growl, she pounced on Keith and pinned him to the control panel. The lights on the dashboard cast menacing shadows on her Galra features. Before, Keith thought she was pretty. Now, the oversized bat ears and sharp fangs made him fear for his life._

_“Why did you do it?” Keith yelled, struggling against her though it was difficult to see through the tears in his eyes._

_“Keith, wake up!” Lance sounded far away, afraid._

_“Why!?”_

_She didn’t answer him. Keith couldn’t move a muscle, paralyzed as he watched her take the Galra blade from his weak fist and turn the point toward his throat. He saw nothing in her yellow eyes except for his own face, reflecting just how terrified he was._

_“Keith!”_

_Lance sounded closer._

“Keith! Wake up!”

Keith’s eyes opened wide, and he gasped loudly like he hadn’t breathed during the entire dream. He jolted up into a sitting position and felt a warm weight on both shoulders. Lance was close, he could feel. It was too dark to see his face.

Catching his breath, Keith felt sweat making his chest and neck sticky. His hands gripped the sheet so tightly that his fingers cramped.

“You’re okay. It’s okay. You were just having a nightmare.”

Lance. Oh God, Lance. His words chased away the heaviness in Keith’s heart but didn’t eradicate it completely. He pulled his knees up to his chest and hugged them. Trying his best to keep his shoulders from shaking, he blinked and felt tears rolling down his cheeks. He sniffled pathetically.

“Hey, man, don’t cry.” Lance was gentle, like he was used to dealing with the waterworks. Keith didn’t care about crying in front of him. It was dark. He couldn’t see.

Fingers brushed through his hair, slow and rhythmic. “It was just a dream. A really bad one. You know that, right?”

It took Keith a moment to speak. “I know.”

He also knew what Lance meant the other day, about feeling like he was put on display for Lance to watch as they slept. It was hard knowing that Lance saw all of that. Keith rarely had nightmares, too, so it was extra annoying that this is what his dreams made him out to be when there was an audience. He wanted to defend himself, to say it wasn’t what it looked like.

“That’ll never, not in a million years, not in a million _realities_ , ever happen.” He paused when Keith unfolded from the fetal position to wrap his arms around Lance’s neck. He melted into it after a second, though, palms rubbing up and down Keith’s sweat-stained back. Keith, meanwhile, tried to calm himself so he wouldn’t drop tears on Lance’s soft, linen scented pajamas. “I’m sure, wherever she is, that she’s a nice lady. Galra. Galra lady.”

“Lance, I…”

“She’d be crazy not to love you.”

Lance rested his cheek on Keith’s head, and Keith matched the pace of their breathing together. His fingers drew circles in the short hair at the back of Lance’s neck.

“Thank you,” Keith said. He always thought showing gratitude to Lance would be like pulling teeth, but it surprised him how easily it came out. It was easy because it was dark, because Lance couldn’t see his face, because they’d been sharing dreams for a while, because this bonding moment clarified to Keith just how important Lance was to him.

“Stay here?” he whispered.

“Sure thing.” Lance nodded and unlooped his arms from around him.

Keith moved to the side of the bed closest to the wall, and Lance occupied the space next to him under the blanket. For a flash of a second, Keith feared going to sleep again. His nightmare was still fresh in his memory, and he didn’t want to face anything like that again. But hearing Lance settle down next to him was relaxing.

He could sleep. They were both tired. Lance would be there when he woke up for the next day. Which was good, because they had a lot to talk about.


	2. Chapter 2

_ Keith folded his arms on the mattress and rested his cheek against them, a relaxed sigh spilling from his lips. Warm hands kneaded into the tense muscles of his back, slowly working out the knots with tender fingers. For once, his dreams gifted him with happy thoughts and a peaceful mind. He totally deserved this. _

_ His masseuse worked from the top down, covering every inch of his bare back with careful, magical touches. His shoulders loosened up, followed by the area around his spine, until finally those wonderful hands reached his tailbone. Two thumbs rubbed into the dimples there, and another sigh was pulled from Keith’s mouth. _

_ The person behind him moved around a little. Fabric slid against fabric. The blanket covering Keith’s lower half brushed down and off his legs, making him shiver. Warmth returned to him, however, when the hands smoothed up the backs of his thighs and pushed into the swell of his ass. _

_ Awake Keith would protest immediately, but Dream Keith just hummed and anticipated how good those hands would make him feel. _

_ They didn’t disappoint, not with the way they kneaded into his flesh. A quietly moaned ‘oh’ came from Keith, and he arched against the insisting touch. _

_ The fingers spread him apart, leaving Keith delightfully exposed. He hid his reddening face in his forearms and pushed back into this wonderful dream stranger some more. Whoever it was knew exactly what they were doing. Keith almost whined when a slick finger circled around his entrance and teased him without even penetrating. _

_ “I’m gonna go nice and slow, okay? I want you to feel  _ amazing _.” The voice was at his ear. It sounded masculine and comforting. The voice was familiar in a way that made Keith relax even more into the sheets. He trusted this person to deliver on his whispered promise. _

_ As much as Keith wanted to look at who exactly could make him feel so good, he was aware of the fact that he was dreaming, and knowing who it was wouldn’t make a difference. That, and the simple truth that he probably couldn’t find the strength to lift his head anyway. _

_ “How’s this?” the man cooed, breaching Keith’s backside with one finger and sliding in all the way. It twisted inside of him, prodding at his walls until it miraculously landed on his prostate. Keith’s response was an unhindered moan as he thrust back against the hand. The teasing needed to end or there was a real chance he would explode. _

_ “More,” he gasped. _

_ “I should have known this wouldn’t be enough to satisfy you. You want all of me, yeah?” There was an amused giggle, and then the finger was gone. _

_ Keith was about to give a grumpy protest before a tongue replaced that finger. It pressed against his entrance, flattened to cover as much space as possible. The man laved at him, wetting the ring of muscle and even a little bit down his perineum down towards his balls. _

_ A shudder went through Keith’s body as his fingers grasped tightly into the pillow below him. He gently rocked backwards, legs spreading instinctively. A brief image flashed through his mind, one of him sitting on this guy’s face and riding him until his legs gave out. _

_ The tongue disappeared all too soon, and Keith considered begging to be teased more just so he could feel the wet touch again. _

_ “I know you want me,” the man behind him said, seemingly answering his own question from earlier. His finger pushed back inside. A second one quickly joined it, and then a third. Keith held down all the noises he wanted to make. “I want you too. I want you so much. Wanted you for so long, Keith.” _

_ It was hearing his own name that did it. A bolt of electricity shot down Keith’s spine, but it wasn’t from the pleasure of having three fingers stretch him to his fullest. His eyes shot wide open because he could finally match a face to that voice. _

_ Lance. _

_ “Fuck, wait, Lance,” Keith managed. He got himself up on his elbows, arms weak, and stretched his neck to try and get a look at Lance’s face. He needed to tell him to stop. He knew Lance would see all of this, and maybe it was too late. Lance was watching Keith have the most lewd, embarrassing wet dream in which he was the star, fulfilling Keith’s incriminating fantasies with his fingers and tongue. _

_ He knew he should wake up, but Lance kept rubbing at his prostate. Massaging, then spreading apart at a maddening rhythm. Massaging, then spreading apart. Any more words that Keith tried to form stopped in his throat and exited as a needy moan. _

_ “Trust me, Keith,” Lance said into his ear, all soft and perfect. _

_ Keith’s dream self apparently had priority over his rational self, because he nodded and dropped back down into the pillow with his chest heaving and his face flushed. _

_ “I always do.” _

_ His breath hitched when Lance removed his hand. The loss was felt for only a second before Lance lined himself up and slowly, deliciously filled Keith up with his cock. It was hot inside of him, pulsing with a steady heartbeat. _

_ Keith cried out because it had never felt that good before. Not in a sex dream and not in real life. He panted, feeling his hair stick to his forehead and the back of his neck from the sweat. Every time he wanted to fuck himself backwards on Lance’s hard cock, Lance beat him there with a slow, deep thrust. It was slow enough to drive him crazy, but he was too weak to do anything about it. Each thrust pushed him deeper into the mattress. His own erection was caught between his abdomen and the sheets, and the friction was exactly what he needed to see stars behind his eyelids. A damp spot bloomed where his hips met the bed. _

_ Keith opened his mouth to say something, and he stopped himself when he realized that Lance--real Lance whom he would have to look at the next morning--would hear it. _

_ That being acknowledged, Dream Lance delivered a well-aimed thrust to Keith’s prostate (they don’t call him the sharpshooter for nothing), and Keith let out a genuine whine. _

_ Friendship be damned. Keith needed to let Lance know how good it felt. _

_ “Lance,” he rasped, not stopping to consider how much he would’ve hated the sound of his own voice under different circumstances. “You feel so good. Fuck me harder--ahh! I’m almost there…” _

_ “That’s all I want.” Lance’s voice was at his ear again. “I just want you to feel good.” _

_ Above him, Lance propped himself on one arm and used his other hand to caress down Keith’s side. His fingers grazed his skin, over the waves of his ribs, raising goosebumps in their wake. Keith jerked backwards, their hips meeting in the middle. _

_ “So close. Come on, babe, just a little more…” _

_ Lance licked the shell of his ear, then closed his teeth over it. _

Keith woke up the instant he came. The images from his dream, the feeling of Lance’s panting breaths at his ear, were still at the forefront of his mind. Under the sheets, his hand had wrapped itself around his erection. He stroked with jerky, sleepy movements, finally coming with Lance’s face behind his eyelids.

The time on his tablet read 05:18. His alarm would wake him up in forty-two minutes. Keith’s lower abdomen felt grosser and grosser as his come dried, and he had to deal with the reality that Lance just saw everything.

A reasonable, responsible adult would swallow his shame and talk to Lance about what just happened. A decent friend would let Lance know that nothing would change between them. Keith was neither a reasonable, rational adult nor a decent friend, so his plan was to avoid Lance for as long as possible and put off dealing with the consequences.

After changing into his day clothes, Keith slipped down the silent hallway and headed toward the training room. He wanted to throw his mind and body into the distraction of fighting the Altean bot. He dreaded having to go to breakfast, though, because Lance would surely be there with a few choice looks to throw Keith’s way.

The door for the training room whirred open, and he was met with the sight of Lance aiming his bayard at the bot and firing blanks in its direction.

Keith froze in place, hand on the door panel, wide eyed as he stared at the very thing he hoped to steer clear of for the entire morning. The very person he’d dreamed about, panting and sweating with focus and determination in his blue eyes.

Before Keith could have thought about ducking out and pretending he’d never been there, Lance noticed him halfway in the door and smiled.

“Oh, hey, man.” He dodged a sweeping kick from the bot and muttered “end simulation” before straightening himself out. “I beat you here for once.”

Keith hoped he wasn’t red as he asked “What are you doing here so early?”

Lance shrugged and looked down at his hand as the bayard shrunk back down to its normal pocket size. He was wearing a form-fitting black tee shirt and basketball length shorts. Lord, save Keith from going into cardiac arrest.

“Couldn’t sleep, really,” Lance said.

“How long have you been in here?” Maybe there was hope.

“Few hours.” Another shrug, followed by a grin. “Is this what you and Shiro like to do all the time? Just wake up at the ass crack of space dawn and train your tails off?”

“Working out helps us get ready for when there’s a real emergency,” Keith said in defence. He hid the utter relief of the fact that Lance hadn’t been asleep to see any of his dream with a raised eyebrow. “You still haven’t mastered the art of being ready for battle at a moment’s notice.” He stepped into the room, allowing the door to finally slide shut behind him. Lance put his hands on his hips and leaned it weight on one foot.

“Hey, getting a good night’s rest is just as crucial as being ready for battle. What if you’re so tired that you fall asleep at the helm, huh? The lions can’t do everything by themselves.”

“Yeah?” Keith smirked. “Is wearing a seaweed mask just as important too?”

“It is, and you know it!” Lance dropped his hands and balled them into fists, shoulders raised. “Healthy skin leads to a healthy mind. And my mind happens to be perfectly equipped for battle.”

“Uh huh. So then next time you wake up at three in the morning to train, you won’t have to set the bot on easy mode like it was today.”

“It was not!” Lance’s voice went up an octave, leading Keith to believe that it most  _ certainly was _ .

“Why couldn’t you sleep anyway? That’s not like you at all,” Keith said, unaware that his smirk had melted into a smile.

“Don’t know,” Lance answered, eyes wandering around the room. “Try as a might, I just couldn’t relax. My legs were all over the place. Just… restless, I guess.”

“Horny,” Keith blurted out. He felt mortified that it even escaped his mouth. It was more than just teasing, too, because he was honestly curious. As embarrassed as he was for saying that, it was worth the dark blush that spread all over Lance’s face and up to his ears.

“M-Maybe I was!” Lance said, voice pitched high again. He definitely wouldn’t meet Keith’s face now. “So what?”

There was no doubt in Keith’s mind that the two instances were connected, him having a lewd dream and Lance not being able to sleep because it turned him on. From the looks of it, Lance wasn’t aware that Keith had a sex dream about him or even had a dream at all. So that meant they both had to be sleeping to share the dream, which was the best news for Keith. He must’ve had some really good karma for a save like that.

It was weird, but it was fine. If anything else, Keith was just beside himself with joy that their friendship wasn’t ruined after all.

“It’s whatever, dude. I don’t care.” He walked past Lance and patted his shoulder, taking his spot in front of the fighting robot. “I am stealing the bot from you, though. Go take a shower. You reek.”

“Will do,” Lance said as he headed for the door. He stopped midway and glanced over his shoulder, his old mischievous grin back on his lips. “Don’t come to the showers for at least thirty minutes.”

He actually fucking winked before disappearing out the door, and Keith wanted the robot to punch his brains in.

He also had to bite his tongue against the response “Bet I could finish you off in ten.”

It was hard to concentrate on fighting because Keith had to come to terms with the fact that maybe, possibly, he had the slightest, teeniest crush on Lance.

… 

_ A warm presence between his thighs. It was lean and strong. Keith spread his legs further apart to push down against it, sighing when the movement created a heady, lulled friction on his erection. He rocked back and forth and heard a stifled moan from below. _

_ Eyes open, he glanced down to see where their two bodies met. Their bare lengths brushed together, and Keith rode his hips with a tired rhythm. Everything around him was champagne colored, just as bubbly, just as fuzzy. He felt warmth blooming from heated bare skin and reaching all the way up to his ears and the tips of his toes. It felt good. It all felt good, like soaking in a jacuzzi and feeling the tension in his muscles just melting away. _

_ His eyes dragged up a tapered, tan waist. A chest that expanded each time he took a breath, ribs poking out. A neck stretched to its max as his head lolled to the side in bliss. Parted lips that gave Keith the image of having kissed them for hours before they got to this point. _

_ Lance was watching him with half-lidded eyes, the blue looking much darker than normal. He was sweating, his forehead and collarbone glistening. When Keith trailed just the tips of his fingers down Lance’s side, he whimpered and twitched. Keith must’ve been teasing him for quite some time. _

_ “Should I untie you?” he heard himself say. His own voice prompted him to look at where Lance’s hands were bound together over his head, tied to the bed frame. Lance swallowed, and his throat sounded dry. _

_ Instead of answering, he rolled his hips up into Keith, drawing a moan from both of them. _

_ Keith felt his hand close around both of their shafts, and he stroked them like he was actually a patient person in this kind of situation. They were both dripping, the liquid collecting into a little pool just under Lance’s belly button. Keith indulgently drank in the sight of Lance below him. He was lucid enough to know it was just a dream, but he wondered if Lance really looked like this in real life. If he really tensed his muscles and showed off a surprising set of abdominals. If he really tilted his head to the side and batted his eyelashes bashfully like he was just doing. _

_ “Come on, Keith…” Lance wiggled his hips impatiently when Keith’s hand slowed to a stop as he got lost in thought. _

_ It kind of hit him in that moment. This was Lance’s dream, not his own. Lance was dreaming about Keith riding him. _

_ To his own shock, Keith’s reaction to his revelation was to smirk down at Lance and slowly rock his hips. He derived a sick kind of pleasure from knowing this was Lance’s fantasy. And he felt immensely less embarrassed about his own lewd dream from the other night. So they were even. Interesting. _

_ “I think I’ll keep you tied up.” Keith let go of their lengths and reached toward the bottle of lube resting just next to his knee. “But don’t worry. I’ll do all the work.” _

_ Lance whined, either at the loss of touch or the insinuation in Keith’s tone that he was about to get teased some more. Keith spread the lube over a couple of his fingers and circled one of them around his asshole. _

_ Reaching behind himself like that, it allowed Lance the full view of his torso all stretched out. Keith could see his own ribs poking out under his skin in a few places, padded nicely by his moderately built muscles. He liked the way Lance looked at him, and he actually got harder just from thinking about Lance looking at him like that outside of a dream. _

_ He tried not to aim too deep with his fingers and instead focused on working the muscles open until he resisted less. In his concentration, his eyebrows drew together, and his eyes focused on some random point in space. _

_ “Hey,” Lance said softly. _

_ Keith trained his gaze back to Lance’s face to find he had been looking at him with the warmest smile. Was it even possible to look so tender with your dick that hard? _

_ “I’m not going any faster. Be patient.” _

_ “No, just…” Lance paused and bit his lower lip. “Did you know you’re blushing right now?” _

_ “Well, can you blame me for getting a little flushed when I shove three of my own fingers up my ass?” Keith could have blushed more, ironically, out of the embarrassment from Lance bringing it up in the first place. _

_ “And you scrunch your nose when you concentrate. It’s cute.” _

_ Keith rolled his eyes and removed his fingers. That was enough stretching. Besides, he didn’t really need to prep if it wasn’t even real sex. Speaking of, did Lance know this was a dream? That Keith knew all about it too? It would make for a very awkward conversation in the morning. _

_ “Will untying you make you shut up?” Keith grabbed the bottle of lube again, this time smearing the liquid up and down Lance’s erection. _

_ “Can’t say- ahh- for sure. Who knows? Maybe you’ll feel so good that I won’t be able to shut up about it for the rest of my-- mm.” _

_ Keith shook his head with an amused huff and leaned forward to pull the knot loose. Lance’s arms wrapped themselves around Keith’s back the instant they gained freedom. Their lips found each other, and Keith could forget his impatience for a second while Lance squeezed him in a sweet, slightly clammy embrace. _

_ He did have to let go eventually, or else they never would have gotten to the good part. Keith rose up on his knees, held Lance’s cock steady, and slower lowered himself onto it. There was no pain, probably due to the fact it was a dream. Was Lance controlling the feelings Keith got? Was he kind enough to forget that anal had its downsides? Keith would thank him later. _

_ Lance moaned below him, sounding like he had no say in the noise that came out. Keith gently panted and rocked back and forth in a shallow rhythm. He liked it more than he would admit, feeling Lance fill him up so nicely and throbbing inside of him. His own erection ached for release, which he wrapped in a fist and stroked in time with his hips. _

_ His eyes closed, and not long after he felt a hand hook around his shoulder and pull him down. His chest met Lance’s, warm lips touched his own, and a pleasured sigh hummed against his mouth. He kissed back with his eyes still shut, getting lost in the feeling of being held and fucked so nicely at the same time. He could almost come like this. In fact… _

The first thing he saw when he opened his eyes was the dark ceiling of his bedroom. Fuck. Lance must’ve woken up.

Keith rolled onto his side and checked the time to find it was only about two in the morning, if you were counting in Earth time. The area between his legs throbbed for attention, so Keith rubbed his thighs together in an attempt to relieve some of the pressure.

Why did Lance have to wake up right when things were getting spicy? Thinking about him, Keith could picture Lance waking up with a fierce hard on. He was probably jerking off right now… Just imagining it made Keith groan in the back of his throat, and his hand crept under the sheet to pressed against his erection through his boxers.

Since when did Keith get turned on by thinking about Lance? He had that dream the other night, and since then his fate was sealed.

Turning onto his stomach, hugging the pillow in a way that would muffle his voice, Keith ground against the mattress and came to thoughts of Lance’s mouth all over his body.

Lance, to Keith’s relief and simultaneous disappointment, wasn’t at breakfast. Keith kept his eyes from shifting toward the empty chair at the table every three fucking seconds. In the times between staring at the chair, he was staring at the door, watching for the blue paladin to make his grand entrance in his robe and full face beauty mask. But no such entity ever made an appearance.

Keith noticed Hunk eating more slowly than usual. He even caught him looking a couple of times. Whenever their eyes met briefly, Hunk would take a sharp inhale through his nose and nearly bury his head in his bowl. He definitely knew something.

After breakfast, Keith snagged Hunk’s elbow and pulled him back into the dining room. Everyone else had gone on their way to begin daily tasks.

“Look, man, I don’t have any lunch money,” Hunk said, backing up from Keith with his hands raised in surrender.

Keith blinked “I don’t want— You know what, never mind.” He rested his weight on one foot and folded his arms. “What’s wrong with Lance?”

Getting right to the point? Keith had intended to be a little more subtle about this, but he was getting a little anxious that maybe because of last night, Lance would never be able to look him in the eye again.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” Hunk asked, innocent of course.

“He wasn’t at breakfast.”

“Yeah, I thought that was a little weird too. Maybe he’s feeling sick? I could bring him some space soup, though I’m sure whatever ingredients are in that wouldn’t help him feel better at all. Or maybe he wanted a head start on his workout? I dunno, could be anything.”

“Just tell me what’s wrong,” Keith said with one eyebrow raised.

“I don’t know anything?”

For starters, the way his Adam’s apple nervously bobbed up and down was a good sign.

“He tells you everything.”

“He doesn’t tell me  _ everything _ , everything. It’s more like on a need-to-know basis, you know? And I definitely don’t need to know everything. Some things are better left unsaid, right? He and I are best friends, but there is a line of T.M.I. that should remain uncrossed, no matter how close we might be. Like, I  _ definitely _ don’t need to know about his wet dreams or who he thinks about or what noises were involved-- crap, I just gave it away.”

“He told you about his wet dream?”

“Don’t say anything to him,” Hunk pleaded.

“Relax. I told you I just wanted to know what’s wrong. ‘Cause I’m, you know, worried. Or something.”

“See? It’s all good. Nothing out of the ordinary.” Hunk laughed in a way that totally wasn’t forced at all.

“Is he in his room?”

“You’re not planning on going in there, are you?”

That was all the confirmation Keith needed. He headed for the door and waved over his shoulder to Hunk, who stood frozen in place.

“I won’t breathe a word. Thanks, man.”

Lance’s door was open when Keith arrived. The light was on, and it cast a bright rectangle on the floor of the otherwise dark hallway. Swallowing whatever nerves there could be before they even surfaced, Keith knocked on the doorframe.

Lance looked up from where he sat on the bed, and Keith felt a weird sense of dejavu. Sucking in a breath through his nose, Lance straightened up his back, tense.

“Shit,” he mumbled. “I should have locked my door.”

“But you didn’t,” Keith observed, watching the way Lance’s eyes held another emotion besides surprise. His gaze was fixed hard on Keith in anticipation, anxiety, and… eagerness?

Keith caught a glimpse of the dream journal barely poking out from under Lance’s pillow.

“I was banking on your tendency to not like confrontation,” Lance admitted.

“I’m just as surprised as you.” After a casual shrug, Keith took a few more steps into the room. Lance’s hair was wet, and he looked glowy. Keith figured he’d just gotten out of the shower.

Remembering why exactly he was there, and putting two and two together, and guessing why he was in the shower in the first place, Keith lost a little of his confidence. He was about to initiate possibly the most awkward conversation of his life, which topped even explaining to Allura what “activating a boy’s particle barrier” meant.

“Look, I realize you not showing up this morning was a sign that you’re trying to avoid me, but I just want to get this over with. Can we put a disclaimer on all of this and be adults about it?”

Lance stared at the floor for a long moment before nodding slightly and glancing back up to Keith.

“Whatever gets said in this room stays in this room. Sound cool?” At least he was willing to talk. It would have been so much harder on Keith if Lance decided to be a clam about it.

“Cool,” Keith said. Then he realized he was probably going to have to start the conversation, based on the constipated look on Lance’s face.

“I don’t hate you or anything,” he said. Seemed like a good point to get out of the way. Lance took on an obvious expression of relief, so Keith felt bold enough to continue. “I don’t think it’s weird or gross either. Am I missing anything?”

“Shameful? Pitiful?” A tiny smile appeared on his lips. “The biggest turn off of your life?”

“It definitely wasn’t--” Keith stopped before he got too ahead of himself. “What I mean to say is that I’m not going to see you any differently. It won’t change anything, unless you want it to.”

“You make it sound like it would be so easy to forget something like that.”

Keith opened his mouth, then closed it again. He rubbed the inner corners of his eyes and let out a sigh because Lance was making it so hard to articulate words with his dumb blue eyes and dumb vulnerable expression. Keith crossed the room with long, rushed strides and sat next to Lance on the bed, their knees touching. He gripped Lance’s shoulder and forced himself to firmly look him in the eyes.

“You’re right. It would be hard to forget something like that. I don’t want to forget something like that.”

“What, you liked it or something?” Lance asked.

Keith could have rolled his eyes.

“I was there! Because of this crazy dream-sharing thing, I was actually there. Do I have to say it out loud? Damn it, Lance, you saw how much I liked it. Why did you have to wake up right when we were getting to the good part?”

Lance’s eyes widened at Keith’s confession, and his cheeks turned a light shade of red. Keith kept himself composed, refusing to let himself get flustered over how ridiculous the whole situation was.

“That’s… um, wow,” was all he managed to say.

“My point is,” Keith squeezed Lance’s shoulder to get him to focus on him again, “things aren’t weird.”

“I’m relieved to hear that, really,” Lance said. He finally sounded calmer, and Keith felt like he did the right thing by coming to talk. “I guess that’s all I was worried about.”

“And to be fair,” Keith started, wondering if he should actually finish what he was about to say, “I had a dream about you the other night. Just like that one.”

“I know.” Lance wore a shy smile. “I watched.”

“You-- Why didn’t you say anything?” Remembering back when Keith found him in the training room, he had no idea how Lance could look him in the face if he had indeed watched that dream.

When Lance shrugged, Keith dropped his hand down into his lap.

“It was easier to pretend I hadn’t seen it. I didn’t wanna embarrass you or anything.”

“I think we’re well past that point.” Keith couldn’t help but smile at the little laugh Lance made in response.

“We know a lot about each other,” he said. “Like now I know about how you probably think all massages are happy ending massages.”

“I’m not delusional,” Keith retorted. “Just hopeful.”

He thought about how Lance had seen his deepest darkest fears and now his deepest darkest kinks. Lance didn’t hate him any less for what he had seen, which was a blessing. They had talked after that one nightmare, which also helped bring them closer. And after seeing Lance in his raw, unfiltered mind, Keith couldn’t stop himself from feeling fond of him.

Their relationship was so much different from where it had started, but it wasn’t all that different at the same time. It wasn’t all that bad, either, being so close to Lance. And to think how all of it happened because of a weird alien disease that linked their dreams to each other.

“And surprisingly, I still like you after knowing more than I ever wanted,” Keith said with a smirk.

Lance turned his face toward him, the contagious smile still on his lips. He let out a breath through his nose and raised his hands to Keith’s face. Holding him still, Lance closed the distance and pressed a lingering kiss on Keith’s mouth.

It sparked a memory in his head. The kiss felt just like the ones their dream selves had shared. There was no way Keith could bring himself to hate it. He didn’t think he could stop himself from loving it, to be honest. He kissed back in the short time Lance held the kiss, eyes fluttering closed. When they parted, Lance glanced over Keith’s shoulder to his open bedroom door, where anyone had the chance to walk down the hallway and see them.

Keith touched Lance’s fingers on his cheek. “We have to get to training before Shiro comes looking for us.”

With a nod, Lance stood up. “Meet you there. I’m gonna grab some food first, since I missed breakfast and all.”

“Hunk is worried about you. You should probably talk to him while you’re in there.”

“I won’t say anything.” Lance threw a wink and a finger gun at Keith from the doorway, then dashed down the hall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, this ended up much longer than i intended. stay tuned for the next chapter where keith and lance finally get to bang in real life
> 
> thank you for waiting patiently and thank you for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

Seeing Lance in his bedroom that night filled Keith with an unexpected sense of relaxation. He thought, considering why they planned to meet in the first place, he’d be filled with the tingling feeling of anxiety. Maybe mix in a fluttering heartbeat for the excitement. But when Lance slipped in and made sure to lock the door behind him, Keith was nothing but happy. The lights weren’t on, so Lance relied on the pale glow of the electronics to help him find the bed.

Keith lounged on top of the sheet in his pajama shirt and boxers, back propped up by a pillow. Lance crawled over to him, still in his day clothes, and sat on his butt next to Keith. His eyes dragged up and down Keith’s body, maybe unintentionally.

“Look what I brought.” Lance reached into his pocket and dropped a small bottle of lube into Keith’s lap.

He picked it up between his thumb and index finger and read the label. “Where the hell did you even find this?”

“Space mall,” Lance said as an explanation.

“What--”

“Long story.” Lance shook his head and took the bottle back, placing it to the side instead.

After what sounded like a steadying breath, he climbed over to straddle Keith’s thighs.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked, hands coming to rest on Lance’s hips.

“You saw my dream. Of course I want to.”

“It’s a lot different in dreams than it is in real life.”

“I know that! I’ve done this plenty of--”

“Pidge told me you’re a virgin,” Keith interrupted.

“That traitor,” Lance mumbled. He set his jaw and removed his jacket, then his shirt so he sat bare-chested in Keith’s lap. The clothes were tossed off the bed, forgotten in the dark. “See? Readier than over.”

Keith just smiled and shook his head. “Come here.”

Hooking a hand behind Lance’s neck, he pulled him down for a deep kiss so they could get a feel for each other and slowly work their way up to making their dreams a reality. Lance kissed him back, following Keith’s lead with the motion on his lips.

After a minute, the other hand on Lance’s hip slowly traveled up the skin on his side. He massaged the base of his skull, then used his leverage to tilt Lance’s head to the side and trail his lips down his neck. His resulting shudder made Keith want to repeat the motion over and over again.

Unable to help it, Keith let his hand drop down to hold Lance’s ass. He gave it a nice squeeze, which caused Lance to shift forward and grind their hips together.

Lance threaded his fingers through Keith’s hair, holding his mouth to his neck where he started sucking on a patch of skin.

“I keep thinking about those dreams,” Lance breathed. “About how good they felt. It’s making me so fucking excited.”

Keith pulled his head away with a wet noise and examined the work he did, eyes squinting. “That’s good. Take your pants off.”

“You take your pants off first.”

“I’m already in my underwear.”

“Yeah, but I’m not wearing underwear.”

“Jesus fucking Christ.” With a sigh. Keith stripped his own shirt off and let it join the growing heap on the floor. “ _ Now _ will you take your pants off? I promise to make it worth your while.”

Lance’s response was a wordless gasp, so Keith took that as a yes. Once his jeans were gone (Keith finding out that he wasn’t lying about going commando), Lance ran his palms slowly down his own stomach, inching toward where he had already started getting hard.

“Up on your knees for a second?” Keith asked.

When Lance obliged, Keith scooted down underneath him so his face was better aligned with Lance’s erection. Lance was now straddling his torso, knees on either side of Keith’s shoulders. In this position, he could get the important prep done like this without having to do much work.

He stroked Lance a few times just to see what kind of reaction he would get, and Lance did not disappoint. He tensed and let out this cute little gasp. Keith indulged him with a few more pumps, then angled his cock in a way that made it easy to wrap his lips around the head.

Lance made another noise above him, legs trembling slightly. With each stroke, Keith took him further and further into his mouth. He went slowly to make sure the shaft was wet with his saliva, then he was free to move his head up and down with no resistance. With a guiding hand, he urged Lance to press down into him so he wouldn’t have to stretch his neck so far. The next sounds that came from Lance were muffled, and Keith could tell he covered himself with his hand.

Multitasking, Keith groped blindly for the bottle of lube. He coated three of his fingers and reached around Lance, gliding them down the cleft of his ass. Lance jerked when Keith rubbed at his entrance with his middle finger, his hips arching forward and (accidentally) driving his cock deeper into Keith’s throat.

He swallowed around Lance and breathed through his nose. This was fine. He could work with it. The most important part was getting Lance properly stretched out, so he concentrated on what his fingers could do.

He eased one in, excited even more by how hot it was inside of Lance. He had to practice patience, however, because the beautiful boy was also incredibly tight. Keith was determined to make sure Lance felt all the pleasure and none of the pain, so he’d work slowly.

All noises stopped, and the only thing Keith heard above him was the sound of Lance panting through his mouth. He still rocked slightly back and forth, burying himself in the heat of Keith’s mouth. The motions also thrust Keith’s finger in and out, and it didn’t take very long for the tension to leave Lance’s body.

Keith tried for a second finger and succeeded. He took more time spreading the fingers apart to stretch Lance comfortably. Once, he curled them inward to rub at the walls, and Lance moaned.

“Oh, shit…”

Keith wanted to stop blowing him just to tell Lance about all the wonders of the prostate, but he could also just demonstrate. Curling his fingers again, Keith massaged the same spot until Lance was all tense again from the pleasure. He clenched around Keith’s hand, making him moan around his shaft. Okay, maybe now his patience was wearing a little thin. He wanted to be inside of Lance so badly. If he didn’t have a cock in his mouth, he would have been drooling.

Lance was probably ready for the last phase of prep. Keith physically and mentally swallowed down his greed and trained himself to focus for the last few minutes. Pausing his hand, he worked his third finger alongside the first two. The snug fit made his head spin.

Pulling his mouth off of Lance, Keith let his head hit the pillow. He looked up at Lance, free hand rubbing soothingly up and down his thigh. Lance’s expression, eyebrows drawn together, lips parted, made him wonder why the hell he waited so long to do this in real life.

“Is this too much?” Keith was moving his hand in gentle motions so Lance had the chance to get used to the feeling of being filled.

Lance wasn’t looking at him. His unfocused gaze was floating around some point behind the bed, and he gradually rocked back and forth on Keith’s fingers. Eventually, he shook his head.

“It feels…” He trailed off. Keith caught the sound of a gasp, stopping short in Lance’s throat. Was that what Lance sounded like when he was absolutely wrecked? Keith needed to find out for himself.

“Talk to me,” Keith urged. His hand twisted, and his eyes watched Lance’s face closely.

It looked like Lance used a moment to compose himself before answering. “It feeling so freaking good. I keep thinking about your hand being something else, something inside of me, and it’s gonna drive me crazy if I have to wait much longer.”

His darkened blue eyes glanced downward, the intensity in them catching Keith by surprise.

“I don’t know much about how this stuff goes, but I think I’m ready--God, I hope I’m ready…”

Taking Lance’s shaft in his free hand, Keith angled his cock down towards his mouth and smiled. He ran the tip around his lips, sliding easily because it was already so wet. His tongue poked out to taste.

“I’m happy to hear that,” Keith said with his breath fanning over Lance. “‘Cause I don’t think I can wait either.”

He gave an experimental thrust of his hand, spreading his three fingers apart and feeling significantly less resistance than before.

“Good news is I think you’re really ready.”

As Keith gracelessly pulled his hand out, Lance released a rather loud curse. The exclamation only made Keith chuckle. The last barrier remaining between them was Keith’s boxers, which were so tented and wet that they barely hid anything anymore. He wiggled out of them and kicked them to some unknown location in the room. Just when he was about to grab the lube, Lance snatched it up and poured a generous amount into his palm.

Daringly, sexily, (God, fuck, where did he learn that expression?) Lance smirked down at Keith and reached behind himself, hand wrapping around Keith’s untouched cock.

He couldn’t stop the whine that Lance pulled from his throat. His hips arched up on their own, aching for more touch.

“I’m not about to be a pillow princess. I can do some of the work too,” Lance supplied. He cupped the tip with his palm and rubbed slow circles. Maybe he was new to this kind of situation, but damn, this boy knew what could make a dick feel good. “ _ And _ I want you to know what it feels like to be teased.”

“‘M not stopping you,” Keith stuttered out, putting most of his efforts into not coming too soon and also not letting out any loud sounds.

He felt like he could breathe again when Lance stopped. Cheeks flushed, he twisted to see behind him as he raised himself up on his knees. One slick hand still held Keith’s waiting erection as Lance slowly lowered himself back down at a more deliberate angle.

He got as far as touching the head to his entrance, and then he lost whatever confidence he had from before and paused. His puffing sigh sounded frustrated.

“Here, don’t worry about it.” Keith replaced Lance’s hand with his own and held himself in position. With the other hand on Lance’s hip, he guided him with a gentle push. “Just go slow. You can stop whenever you want.”

It was a laborious effort, but Lance eventually sat down with a groan that lasted as long as it took for each inch to disappear. His eyes had squeezed shut early on, and his furrowed eyebrows told Keith he was focusing on getting the task completed before worrying about how it felt. For him, at least, it was hard enough to  _ not _ think about how fucking perfect it felt to have himself buried up to his balls inside of Lance.

As a distraction, Keith brought his fist around Lance’s cock and stroked slowly to calm him, like there was a such thing as a calming handjob.

“In the dreams,” Lance started, and Keith looked up to find Lance had opened his eyes, “you made this seem so easy.”

A breezy laugh made its way out of Keith’s throat, and he pushed himself up into a sitting position to kiss Lance’s chin.

“Go easy on yourself. No one’s expecting you to be a pro during the first time.”

“With all the practicing I do, I should be a pro by now.” Lance slumped down to rest their foreheads together, an easy smile on his lips. At least he looked like he was feeling better.

“You’re so gross.” It wasn’t much of an insult at all.

“We’re gross.”

Unable to refute the obvious fact, Keith just tilted his head up and drew Lance into a kiss that quickly developed into something deeper. Lance tugged on his bottom lip with his teeth, and Keith’s breath escaped him in a high-pitched moan.

Hands on Keith’s shoulders, Lance tried to move himself up and down. It was slow and awkward with their angle, but it still made him feel something regardless. He gasped and had to break the kiss, nails latching onto Keith’s skin.

As much as Keith loved ( _ loved _ ) having Lance ride him, loved the feeling of his walls sliding up and down with each subtle movement, loved Lance’s aroused and nervous breaths panting against his ear… He didn’t want to let Lance struggle if it was too much for him. Arms around his middle, Keith made him stop.

“Let me try something different,” he murmured, already on the move.

It took some coordination, but Keith managed to flip their positions and get Lance onto his back without slipping out of him and without causing much more discomfort. Lance lay his head on the pillow and gazed up at Keith, eyes lidded halfway. He looked so good like that, surrounded by Keith’s bedsheets, hair a mess, skin showing the first signs of sweat. Between his legs, his dick was still hard. He was still into it, and that boosted Keith’s confidence maybe more than it should have.

“I said you weren’t gonna do all the work.” If Keith wasn’t mistaken, that was a pout.

With one arm holding him up over Lance, Keith gave his best smirk. “It’s not work if I like it, right?”

In this position, it was much easier to glide himself in and out without their awkward tangle of limbs. He started slowly, like a gentleman, and watched Lance’s reactions to peg what he did and didn’t like.

At one point, there was a loud moan made on Lance’s part, and Keith took to clue to speed up and increase the pressure behind his thrusts. He went more on instinct now, letting his hips snap forward as hard as they dictated. A few of Keith’s own noises spilled into the heated air between them. He was panting from exertion and arousal, barely keeping his eyes open because he’d be damned if he didn’t watch every second of Lance’s beautiful face.

Those were the only sounds for a while. Both of them didn’t want to, or couldn’t, form words to express how they were feeling. It was obvious, though, in the way Lance gripped the sheets below him, in the way Keith buried his face in Lance’s neck to stifle his heavy breathing. Lance was hot, and the places where their skin touched gathered with sweat.

Keith simultaneously wanted it to last forever but also wanted to reach the climax his body was coiling for. Regardless of his desires, his body was approaching that point more rapidly than before. He lifted his head to look at Lance’s face. His eyebrows drew together in pleasure to communicate what he couldn’t form the words to say.

“Lance--” he forced out in warning. At the same time, Lance reached behind his neck to pull him in for a messy kiss. He probably guessed what Keith was about to do, and this sweet kiss was just the last thing he needed to skip over and fall off the edge.

If he moaned, Keith didn’t really register it. His whole body tingled through his orgasm, and he eventually came to realize he let all of his weight rest on Lance. On shaky arms, he pushed himself up and found a sticky puddle smeared between their abdomens.

“Did you come?” Keith asked.

“Obviously,” Lance snorted, though his tone lacked its usual edge and was instead soupy and blissed.

“Did you touch yourself?”

“I was gonna,” Lance talked around catching his breath, “but then my body was like ‘You don’t even need to’.”

Satisfied with his apparent job well done, Keith rolled off of Lance and let himself relax on the bed. He was gonna be sore, but nowhere near as sore as Lance would be in the morning. Keith considered warning him about that, but figured Lance would find out for himself in a short amount of time.

“Is this the part where we wake up now?” Lance wrapped his arm around Keith’s shoulders, cuddling despite how nasty they felt.

“Better fucking not,” Keith mumbled. Angling his head, he pressed his mouth to the soft spot behind Lance’s ear. He smelled, well, like sweat, and the tips of his hair were damp with it, but Keith couldn’t be bothered about it for the moment.

“Is it acceptable to interrupt post-coital cuddling for a shower?” Lance asked.

“I hope you don’t plan on falling asleep in my bed with come still up your ass.”

“And… when we’re done cleaning up, can I come stay with you tonight?” Lance looked at him, blue eyes soft and shining.

“Sure. Why?”

“I prefer real you over dream you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> even when you get to practice two (2) times in your dreams, your first time in real life is always gonna be awkward :')
> 
> thank you again for your patience and thank you so much for reading!
> 
> if you wanna keep in touch with me on [tumblr](http://regiaam.tumblr.com/), please feel free!

**Author's Note:**

> but, wait! what about sex dreams?
> 
> believe me, those are coming
> 
> i'll post the smut as a part two after i'm finished with it, whenever that might be


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